


ripping through like a missile

by jen_chan13



Series: author never finishes anything ever [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 00:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1407712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jen_chan13/pseuds/jen_chan13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wakes up in chains. He's not surprised.</p>
<p>(AKA, the one where Captain America wakes up after 70 years on ice, only to find that America doesn't look hardly anything like it did when he went under.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> playing in a new sandbox here, no idea where this is going but it sure has been fun so far!
> 
> fair warning, i have skipped whole swathes of plot and back-story, and left out a veritable eon's worth of scenes, so this will make absolutely no sense to anyone but me.
> 
> uh, also, POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING: slavery as a part of society, and characters being sold into slavery or owning slaves. nothing graphic.

Steve wakes up in chains. He's not surprised.

It was foolish to split up, but in hindsight he can see they were being herded, pushed into opposite directions, one disaster after another pulling them further apart, until they were out of direct contact, and then out of earshot, so when the explosion happened Steve had been running back toward the rendezvous point without thought. And then another blast behind him had thrown him off his feet; he'd hit the ground hard but rolled back up, worried with the light of the fire in the distance, and he never saw whatever took him down, just the concussive force against the side of his head and then darkness.

He's groggy now, drugs in his system, but he wasn't in his personal uniform this time, so maybe they don't know who he is. Maybe they think he's still unconscious. The drug has kept him relaxed, his breathing slow and even and his muscles loose despite his predicament, and he uses that to his advantage. There's no light behind his eyelids, but he can still make out some details: the gentle rocking motion and the rushing of air, the clack of wheels over tracks that prove he's riding on a train at speed; he's lying on his back on a hard surface, a minimal cushion underneath his body and a rough warm blanket covering everything but his face. The manacles around his wrists and ankles are padded, but they feel weighty and fit firmly, right up against his skin.

Prisoner transport. The pallets work somewhat like stretchers, able to be carried or rolled while their occupants are unconscious, keeping the prisoners relatively comfortable and easy to transport - and if someone wakes up, they'll find themselves chained to the rails, able to flail around but not escape. In a train car they'll be stacked four high on a rack as long as the car, with a single aisle down one side - usually the heads of the pallets are oriented to the aisles, so a guard or medic can have easy access to each prisoner.

Most prisoners of war are sold, to collect funds for the war and to reduce the costs accrued by the government in keeping them. Only high-priority prisoners, officers or political figures with influence or knowledge of enemy plans, are kept by the state. Ordinarily, Steve would be one of them. If he's lucky, they won't have realised his identity, and then maybe he'll be able to escape from whatever socialite buys him, maybe, somehow, make his way across the border and get home.

~

Stark.

Steve feels sick just thinking about it. Most of the weapons that kill his people have the Stark Industries logo written on them; the Stark family has funded and supplied and publicly supported the Empire's expansionism tendencies for generations. The current patriarch of the Stark fortune and company is considered a genius inventor; many of his ideas have been put to good use slaughtering soldiers and civilians alike back home.

And now this.

They use a standard anaesthetic when they put the microchip in his back, and it takes all of Steve's self-control - and his thankfully high pain threshold - to keep from flinching or tensing his muscles and giving away how little the drug affects him. Then he lies on the bench and watches while they encode his ownership data onto the chip, the information from his tags sparse next to the column of text about Anthony E. Stark.

~

Steve clenches his jaw and settles on his knees to the left of Stark's chair, his own stiff posture at odds with the other man's languorous sprawl. Stark reaches out one hand and ruffles Steve's hair, and Steve has to restrain the urge to show his teeth - he's no lapdog to be petted and played with, but he's not above biting any hand that comes near enough.

Stark doesn't seem to realise the danger; he tangles his fingers in Steve's hair and otherwise ignores him.

The auction goes on, soldiers brought on stage one group at a time, but Stark doesn't make any more purchases. Steve isn't sure whether to be grateful or... he doesn't even know how he's supposed to feel. Mostly he's just numb, unable to react to anything beyond his immediate awareness. He's thankful, at least, that he doesn't recognise any of the others up there - either the rest of the Commandos escaped when the enemy caught Steve, or they've been captured and taken to some other location - which, if anyone figured out their identities, is pretty likely. Hopefully they haven't been found at all, hopefully they're safe back home in the Republic, because at the moment there's nothing Steve can do about it if they're not.

He doesn't know how much time passes like that, kneeling on the stone floor beside the table, shifting his weight and turning his feet to keep the circulation going in his legs. Stark doesn't pay him any attention at all, except to absently pet Steve's head now and then. The billionaire spends his time talking with his female companion or muttering to someone over his phone, tapping a stylus on a small tablet computer. Steve tries to pay attention to the man's activities, but the crowd is noisy and Stark keeps his voice down and his tablet in his lap, discreet around the other guests. Steve can't even see the earbud Stark must be wearing to make his calls - maybe it's on the other ear, or maybe technology in the Empire really is that advanced. The tablet is certainly fantastic, composed of just a single sheet of glass, light projected across the surface that responds almost preemptively to the stylus in Stark's fast-moving fingers. Steve's never seen anything like that. The Republic has similar technology, but compared to what Stark is using...

After what must be a few hours, the event seems to end, or at least the lights on the stage go dark and everyone gets up from their chairs, Stark included.

"Finally, thank God," Stark murmurs, and the redheaded woman hisses back reprovingly at him, "Tony!"

"What, don't be mad, c'mon Pep, you gotta admit even board meetings get more exciting than this stuff." Stark makes a masterful pout in Steve's peripheral vision, and Steve bites back on the frustration welling up in him at the comment, the casual way Stark's hand falls to Steve's shoulder and urges him up to his feet, the touch proprietary and possessive. They stand in a circle together, Stark's hand keeping Steve close with a light pressure on his shoulder-blade, the pretty redhead leaning in on Stark's other side.

The woman - "Pep" - narrows her eyes at Stark. "Be that as it may," she says firmly, leaning into his shoulder to speak quietly in his ear, "you should show some respect."

Stark furrows his brow and frowns comically. "I am full of respect, I exemplify respect - what am I respecting? Is there anything here to respect?" He gestures to the room at large with the hand not pressed to Steve's back, but the motion is contained in the bubble of space between them, and his voice is still low under the combined susurrus of the crowd around them. For a moment, from the corner of his eye, Steve catches a change in the expression on Stark's face - a sort of... weariness. The look vanishes after a second to be replaced by the pout, and Steve almost wonders if he saw it at all.

"Tony," Pep says softly, not scolding now but almost regretful. They're both quiet for a moment.

"Well, this has been lovely," Stark says loudly, and he makes a show of running his hand through Steve's hair and down the back of his neck, of throwing his arm around Pep and escorting them both through the crowd. He calls out to the other socialites around them, flirting and joking and waggling his eyebrows obnoxiously. On either side of Stark, Steve and Pep walk silently, shadows tugged along in his wake.

Something just happened there. Steve doesn't know what it was, but there was an undercurrent to their brief, quiet conversation that sounded important. He turns it over in his head, and in the meantime he watches Stark and Pep, curious as to what else he might discover.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not what he expected.

“Rogers,” Stark says, commanding attention, once the three of them are standing in the opulent high-ceilinged foyer of Stark’s home. Steve looks at him with a deliberately blank face.

“This way,” Stark sweeps his hand to one side and leads the way down a wide white corridor to another room, where a piano sits surrounded by a panoramic view of the ocean through an enormous window. To one side is a staircase leading down, enclosed with frosted glass, and heads down the stairs without glancing around or even checking that Steve is still with him. He hears the click of the assistant’s heels on the tile behind him, though – he could overpower her, but he won’t – so he follows Stark down.

The stairs end in an alcove with concrete on three sides and glass on the fourth, floor-to-ceiling panels, one of which has hinges and a handle to open into the cavernous space beyond. Stark touches the glass beside the door - not the door handle - and it opens on its own to admit them into a space that looks to be part garage, part metal-working shop, part laboratory. Steve can barely make sense of some of the equipment lying around, and his eyes are drawn to the line of pre-war cars that line one side of the vast concrete room – convertibles, roadsters, at least one race car, and several classics from the early days of automobiles that have to be worth… Steve can’t even imagine how much.

Stark could fund the war effort for a year from selling just one of those cars. Steve tears his eyes away.

“Over here, Rogers,” Stark calls, and Steve realizes the man has been waiting while Steve wandered the room. Flustered and a bit nervous, he approaches the metal table where Stark is standing.

The tabletop is strewn with papers, coffee cups, pens and pencils of all kinds, at least three wrenches, a blow-torch with gloves and mask, and several pieces of mechanical something-or-other that Steve doesn't have a hope of identifying. There’s also a metal case with latches – it looks like nothing so much as a child’s lunchbox, like the one Steve had growing up. Stark opens the case and pulls out two cuffs, shiny silver and no more than half an inch wide.

Steve tenses, his shoulders coming up automatically as he’s reminded of the manacles and chains still around his wrists. Stark either doesn't notice or, more likely, ignores Steve’s reaction.

“Let’s see those irons, Rogers,” Stark gestures, and when Steve does nothing he reaches out and grabs Steve’s elbow, pulling him closer, and then catches the chain hanging between Steve’s wrists. Stark drags him forward until his hands – and the standard-issue cuffs – are resting on the work table, and then he opens the cuffs from the case and slides them one at a time around Steve’s still-manacled wrists.

The new cuffs are slim and loose around Steve’s wrists, with no chain between them. They’re light as air, too – he can barely feel them they weigh so little, especially in comparison to the heavy steel manacles that scrape at his wrists still. Stark pulls out the key to the manacles – a heavy steel key on an electronic key-fob – and begins the three-step process of unlocking the military-issue manacles. When the left-hand manacle is off, falling with a dull clunk to rest on the metal table, Stark takes up Steve’s now-much-lighter left hand and touches something on the shiny band he’d placed on Steve’s wrist.

The band lights up, little blue lights in a ring along the center of the inside surface, and then the whole thing contracts, seamlessly to Steve’s eyes, until it rests snugly on his wrist just behind the spread of bones at the base of his hand. He could probably get out of it – if he broke at least three bones in his hand, starting with his thumb.

Stark repeats the same process with Steve’s right hand, removing the military-grade manacle and then – somehow – causing the little metal cuff to contract to fit Steve’s wrist.

When they’re done, the manacles rest on the table in a sad heap of steel, lost among the scattered debris of Stark’s mysterious mechanical projects, and Steve feels more like he’s wearing bracelets than anything that could keep him prisoner.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Stark says, eyebrow raised as he watches Steve examine the cuffs. “Try to walk more than five feet off my property without my clearance and you’ll change your mind.” And then, to no one Steve can see: “Jarvis, show Rogers what you can do.”

Steve feels a kind of tension building suddenly against the flesh of his wrists, pulling and tugging. The cuffs are round and smooth-edged, so they aren’t scraping the way the manacles did, but the pressure builds and Steve finds himself putting his wrists closer together to ease the tension. It’s like holding a super-magnet in each hand – the pressure builds until the cuffs come together with a clink, and then Steve finds – incredibly – that he’s not strong enough to pull his hands apart, the cuffs stuck together like they’re welded that way.

And then, with his wrists still stuck together, he feels a tingle – not painful, but definitely a strange sensation – where the cuffs touch his bare skin. The hairs on his arms stand on end, and he realizes that he’s feeling a live electric charge from the cuffs.

“Feel that?” Stark asks, watching Steve’s reaction with a strange look on his face, an expression Steve can’t parse. “It gets a lot stronger. Those little guys can drop an elephant; my advice is not to test it. So!” Stark claps his hands together, grinning all of a sudden. “House rules! Rule one, don’t leave the grounds without me or Pepper to give you the all-clear – you really won’t survive the attempt. Rule two, if a door is locked then it’s locked for a reason, so no peeking. Rule three, don’t break anything, Jarvis will tattle on you. Rule four…” Stark frowns. “I’ll let you know if I think of one. Pepper should do this, she knows all the rules. I guess Jarvis will tell you if you try to do something you’re not supposed to. Jarvis, make a note!” Stark tells the ceiling.

“Noted, sir,” the ceiling says back. Steve very deliberately doesn't jump, but his heart beat skyrockets.

“Better say hello, Jarvis,” Stark says, grinning at Steve like a shark confronted by a very slow and fat fish.

“Good evening, Captain Rogers,” the ceiling says.

“Jarvis – that’s J-A-R-V-I-S – is the AI of the house,” Stark tells Steve. “You’ll hear him around.” Stark closes up the lunchbox-case, and then seems to dismiss Steve from his attention, turning to stride across the room to another shining steel table, this one covered in several clear-glass monitors and at least two keyboards. He throws his suit jacket over the back of a rolling chair and touches one of the monitors, which lights up blue and white with some kind of schematic. 

Steve stands in the middle of the room, ignored, with apparent free run of a mansion on the West Coast, completely at a loss as to what he’s supposed to be doing now.

This is not what he expected.


End file.
